Elizabeth Kelly: Artist Statement & Bio

My work in glass over the last 20 years has focussed on industrial handling processes of pressing and centrifuging to design works repeated in production incorporating a specific (largely transparent) colour range. During the last decade I have focussed on the composition of elements to construct larger objects, moving from utilitarian objects to a sculptural emphasis that still incorporates industrial methods of production but strongly draws from theoretical research for inspiration. This approach is informed by my work across other platforms prior to bringing this intent into my materially specific work.

I have always enjoyed changing scale; micro to macro cosmic observation has a way of changing perspective, and tailors to the aptness of purpose, and sets challenges in resolution of any work.

In these intricate iterations of cast, assembled and cold finished works my point of departure is the examination the origins of abiogenetic life and elemental organic geometry as inspiration. The theory of abiogenesis examines how the natural process of life has arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. Furthermore I am examining chirality or the asymmetry of chemical structures in the triggering of growth sequences, elemental in the understanding of what trips this potential ‘life’ switch. Mindful of these chemical processes, my work has a strong serendipitous affinity with marine invertebrates, realised through compositions of rhythmic sequences

Elizabeth Kelly is an artist who has a committed to exploring colour and form through glass. Her current focus, explores the built environment and patterns in engineering. Underlying this subject is a fascination with the social and historic values imbued in architectural structures and the link to scale and perception. 

Throughout her career, Kelly has worked collaboratively with architects, designers and sculptors on specific projects, and has continued a vigorous exhibition engagement.

Elizabeth initially trained as a glass blower before broadening into sculpture and applied design. She gained a Bachelor of Visual Arts from Australian National University, Canberra, and a Master of Visual Arts degree from Sydney College of the Arts, the University of Sydney.

Elizabeth Kelly established Studio Tangerine in 2003 from a need for a dedicated studio to research and develop small scale industrial processes of coloured glass applied to architecture, art and design.

Previous to Studio Tangerine, Kelly lectured at Sydney College of the Arts taking up the prestigious position of Head of Studio, and also lectured at JamFactory Contemporary Craft and Design Centre in Adelaide, South Australia. She has travelled extensively working in studio glass and has completed a Fellowship at the Creative Glass Centre of America, an Artist in Residency at the Seto International Ceramic and Glass centre in Japan. She was awarded the Capital Arts Patrons Organisation Fellowship in Canberra and most recently a Churchill Fellowship.

Elizabeth Kelly: CV January, 2020 Download

David Collins: Artist Statement & Bio

For David Collins, painting and drawing streams from the ongoing closeness he feels with the environment. Loose and languid lines, much like the Mangrove roots that edge the Hawkesbury River surrounding the artist’s home, sprawl across the canvas in search of connection. Reaching out, they intertwine within the fold of intersections; drawing relationships between marks, colours, spaces and tones. 

In Collins’ use of line, the paint brush also acts as pencil, both utensils unified as one to be dragged across the composition in varying lengths and strengths. It is the act of tying painting and drawing together that evokes such expression, such earnest, that the familiar landscapes held dear to artist are revealed and mapped. As much as his work is about observing, it too is about feeling. We feel the vibrancy and quietening force of nature and as a result are better for it. In this way, there is also a sense of the serendipitous moment, of slowing and looking, of the inextricable relationship between the individual and the natural world - lost but perhaps not forgotten, available to you if you are available to it. 

 

David Collins is a landscape painter who has lived on an island in the Hawkesbury River, NSW, since 1987. He crosses the Hawkesbury regularly by row boat and this close contact with the river has had a deep impact on his work. 

Since 1990, David has held 16 solo exhibitions of paintings and drawings as well as participated in many group exhibitions.  David was able to further pursue a long time fascination with Chinese painting and calligraphy in 2004 when he was offered a residency and teaching position at the North West University for Minorities in Lan Zhou, China and between 2009 and 2014 he held part-time tutoring positions with TAFE NSW and Sydney Art School.

David’s most recent achievements have been –Finalist 2018, 2016 and 2015 Korea Australia Arts Foundation Art Prize; Highly Commended 2013 Wynne Prize for landscape painting from the Art Gallery of NSW; Finalist, 2016 Grace Cossington Smith Art Award; Winner, 2011 Painting Prize – Hornsby Art Prize.

David Collins: CV August, 2020 Download

Julie Blyfield: Artist Statement & Bio

Julie Blyfield has worked for over 30 years at her practice, currently from her own independent studio overlooking her garden environment in Maylands, South Australia. Julie’s jewellery and object work is inspired by research into botanical specimens, historical silver collections and the rich diversity of the Australian landscape, which she interprets using the technique of metal chasing, hammering and surface chiselling, predominately in sterling silver and more recently, copper.

Julie Blyfield has worked for over 30 years at her practice, currently from her own independent studio overlooking her garden environment in Maylands, South Australia. Blyfield’s jewellery and object work is inspired by research into botanical specimens, historical silver collections and the rich diversity of the Australian landscape, which she interprets using the technique of metal chasing, hammering and surface chiselling, predominately in sterling silver and more recently, copper.    

In 2007, Blyfield was a recipient of the prestigious South Australian Living Artists Award which celebrated her achievements with a major monograph about her life and work, published by Wakefield Press. An Australia Council - Creative Australia Award (2015-16) offered Blyfield the opportunity to create and exhibit Panorama a significant body of new jewellery and objects for an international touring solo exhibition at  Ruthin Crafts Centre, North Wales; The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh and Bilk Gallery in Canberra in 2017. Blyfield collaborated with Kirsten Coelho, a potter to present Ormolu at Gallery Funaki opening in October, 2017 touring to The Jam Factory in Adelaide and The National in Christchurch, New Zealand. In 2018 she presented a solo exhibition Flora at Irene Belfi Gallery in Milan, Italy. 

Blyfield’s jewellery and metalwork is held in Australian and International museum collections including the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra; the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, France; the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, United Kingdom. Her work has been shown in International Art and Design Fairs such as Collect, London, UK and Chicago SOFA in America. Blyfield’s work has also been selected for the prestigious international jewellery exhibition - Schmuck and her silver objects have been shown at the Schoonhoven Silver Award several times in her career. 

Blyfield has travelled, lectured and presented workshops in Australia, United States of America, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. As part of her practice she regularly mentors emerging jewellers, sharing her knowledge, skills and professional experience. She is currently mentoring the Jam Factory Metal Associates in 2019. Blyfield has won numerous prizes for her work including the Overall Winner of the South Australian Museum Natural History Art Prize where her work was acquired by the South Australian Museum collection. 

Julie Blyfield: CV March, 2023 Download

Andjana Pachkova: Artist Statement & Bio

Andjana Pachkova is captivated by the never-ending dance of nature and the human; passionate and loving to be sure, yet also violent and at times exploitative. Her painting practice is firmly grounded in the intuitive, responding to the invisible and the ephemeral, to landscapes both travelled and felt. Her process follows the flow of substance, finding a place for herself that is liquid, fluid and moving very quickly. Interested in the infinite and treacherous possibility of water and surface, her painting practice explores the mutual interaction of the human and the landscape, how they move to shape and touch each other.

Born in Ukraine, Andjana Pachkova comes from a traditional Russian art tutoring background. Following the political movement Perestroika, she moved to Moscow and took classes at Stroganov Academy of Industrial and Applied Arts.

In 1997 Pachkova won the prestigious Davis Fellowship and subsequently moved to the United States. Alongside her academic studies, Andjana developed a drawing and painting practice informed by a passion for human relationships to landscape, in particular exploring the subtle changes in human psyche that occur when a person moves through a series of places.  Andjana took art courses both at Dartmouth Colledge, New Hampshire and NYU, New York.

Grounded in the intuitive, Andjana’s paintings team with passion, submerging the viewer in an active experience of movement and self- actualisation. Responding to both invisible and ephemeral connection, to topographies both travelled and felt, her practice explores the mutual interaction of human within the landscape, how they move to shape and touch each other. Recently interested in the infinite and treacherous possibility of oceanscapes, her works and painting process have taken on the turbulence of substance, of flowing paint and swirling water, to find a place for herself on canvas that is fluid and living.

Pachkova has studied with notable artists such as Idris Murphy, Jo Bertini, Brandt Lewis, Denis Clarke and Tony Tozer. Upon her move to Australia in 2013, she began to exhibit her work in Sydney and since 2017 has been represented by Stanley Street Gallery in New South Wales.

Andjana's works are held in private collections across the United States, including Harvard Law faculty in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Finland, Israel and Lebanon.

Andjana Pachkova: CV April, 2024 Download

Denis Clarke: Artist Statement & Bio

Painting for me is a bodily thing. It involves the relationship between one’s self and making contact with the tactile. Why tactile? Because I am touching materials and feeling out my experience of looking at a subject such as landscapes, people and buildings.

Drawing is the whole key. Not drawing for its own sake but drawing to explore ideas for connecting with the world. Finish is irrelevant. These drawings serve the purpose of the painting and illuminate my imagination to the possibilities of new compositions. I am interested in the physicality and directness of drawing which often finds its way into my works on paper as well as my paintings.

My interest is what I would call 'creating a process of informed experiment'. I allow myself to risk and play with media while aligning my senses with the observed. It is the otherness or feel of a subject which provides the impetus to experiment and find new solutions with mark.

For me, working before a subject is deeply complex and a chance to explore visual language. The test is to find graphic statements and abstractions which truthfully parallel perceptions and travel towards a resolved image. Previously Unseen explores my reactions and connection with the urban which has been an important aspect of my painting for many years. It is a reference to my wish to try and see the world anew.

Denis Clarke works across painting and drawing, exploring the relationship between himself, the bodily and the tactile. Interested in creating a process of informed experiment, his paintings extend conversations of subject, texture and paint fluidity that suspend perception and reality. His work layer playful exchanges between drawing and painting processes, finding new solutions with mark-making to explore the subject. Contextualised within the European neo-expressionist movement, Clarke’s colourful gestural works deconstruct improvisation, inviting new and playful languages of representation.  

Clarke completed post-graduate study at St Martins School of Art, London, and received the NSW Travelling Art Scholarship as well as Moya Dyring residency at the Cite International des Arts in Paris. 

Based in Sydney, he has spent periods working and studying in London and Switzerland, teaching at the Camden School of Art and the Hampstead School of Art, exhibiting at Gillian Jason Gallery, Boundary Gallery and James Colman Gallery, Knightsbridge, as well as creating set designs and costumes for the experimental Opera Factory, in Zurich and London. 

Clarke returned to Australia in 1998. 

He has held 17 solo exhibitions since 1975 and has collaborated with several premier arts organisations such as Opera Factory in London and Switzerland, Warwickshire Arts Festival in the UK, and most recently as the artist in residence at Wollombi Valley Arts Council. From 1999 - 2010 Denis was a sessional lecturer at the National Art School and tutor from 2011 ongoing. He also instructs master classes at Charles Sturt University, the University of Southern Queensland, the Mitchell School of Art and the McGregor School.  

Clarke has exhibited in numerous Art Fairs including ‘Line Art, Ghent’, The Brussels Art Fair, The 20th Century British Art Fair, Royal College of Art, and The Islington Art Fair. His work is included in private and public collections including: the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Fitzwilliam College Cambridge and Lloyds of London. 

Clarke has been represented by Stanley Street Gallery since 2014.

Denis Clarke: CV July, 2022 Download

Shaun Hayes: Artist Statement & Bio

The collection of plastic objects that inform Hayes’s sculptures are evocative of certain memories and feelings, capturing these ephemeral moments in time. Hayes contemplates the nature of today’s throwaway society and using seemingly unimportant, everyday objects, humorously highlights the importance of being more conscious of the enduring impact waste has on the environment. Drawing on the aesthetics of traditional ceramic vessels combined with contemporary objects, his adorned vessels echo a blending of past and present, old and new as well as illustrating the material similarities between plastic and ceramics.

Interested in the feelings and memory these throwaway objects evoke, Hayes comically uses trash to build vessels of Western cultural heritage. Our garbage becoming a biographic assemblage of certain value systems. The unimportant plastic bottle, the takeaway container and toothpaste ironically put on a pedestal, vitrified, forever set in stone. Almost sarcastically, the works are critiques of how material value is manufactured. But in the environment, it does not matter, material hierarchy does not exist, and both refuse to break down and return to the earth.

Through methods of repetition, rearranging and joining of cast objects paired with a tonal colour palette, Hayes’s sculptures are reminiscent of fantastical and comical imagery whilst also highlighting the tensions of growing up in conversation with existing in a wasteful, thoughtless consumerist society.

Shaun Hayes is a ceramic artist who investigates the relationship between throwaway objects and their ability to instil a sense of reflection on memory, creating a deeply nostalgic and sometimes humorous representation of time and place.

Hayes received a Bachelor of Arts (Visual), with Honours majoring in Ceramics from the Australian National University School of Art in 2013. He is currently living and producing work in Ngario Country, (Captains Flat) NSW Australia.

Career highlights - Winner of the 2024 Muswellbrook Art prize (ceramics), 2023 - invited to exhibit in 'Temperature' an international ceramic art exchange exhibition in Jingdezhen China as part of the Taoxichuan Autumn Art Fair. 2022 finalist in the Waverley Small Sculpture Prize.  Represented Stanley Street Gallery at the Sydney Contemporary Art Fair, Carriageworks Sydney in September 2018 and 2023 as well as the 2023 Melbourne Design Fair. His trips to Jingdezhen China in 2011, 2013 and 2023.

Shaun Hayes: CV August, 2024 Download

Claire Primrose: Artist Statement & Bio

When we think of a place, we imagine it not in its entirety, but rather as integral parts; feelings and images pieced together to create the impression of a whole.

In Primrose’s practice, she mirrors this concept, the serendipitous recreation and abstraction of these views encourage our eye to piece together the changing actions of material, much like Primrose herself does so in her studio - so that we too, may feel a sense of place. She pieces together the remnants of these places; a collection of memories, samples and studies which are then reworked into the applique of paint. Through a process of layering; she scratches, sprays and applies a mixture of mediums in a way that not only conjures up feelings of awe and wonder felt only by arriving at a greatly-anticipated scenic view, but does so in a way that allows the colours, layers and gestural mark-making to actively illustrate the scene before you.

Claire Primrose is a painter who works primarily with mixed media. Primrose graduated with a BA in Visual Arts (majoring in printmaking) at ANU, Canberra, in 1997. Based in Queanbeyan, she has also completed a Graduate Diploma in Secondary Art Education and has taught both Visual Art and Dance at various high schools in Canberra for ten years. She has been represented by Stanley Street Gallery since 2015.

Primrose has participated in various group and solo exhibitions both locally and nationally; including being selected for DIRECTION NOW> national touring exhibition with 10 other artists who also focus on abstraction. She was the winner of the 2017 Waverley Art Prize – Drawing. Most recently she has been selected as a finalist in the 2019 Wyndham Art Prize, SA; the 2019 Hunters Hill Art exhibition and the 2019 Highly Commended and People’s Choice Winner in the Wingecarribee Landscape Prize, Bowral.  She has also been selected as a finalist in the Paddington Art Prize, The Fleurieu Biennale, The Kedumba Drawing Award, The Tattersall’s Club Landscape Prize, The Hawkesbury Art Prize, Morton Bay Art Prize, the Norville Art Prize, the Whyalla Art prize and most recently, the Paul Guest Drawing Award.

Claire was awarded winner of the Queanbeyan City Council Regional Art Prize in both 2009 and 2015, the Goulburn Regional Art Award in 2016 as well as the Capital Chemist Art Award Tuggeranong in 2015. She has also been awarded a Highly Commended in the Queanbeyan City Council Art Award in 2010 and the Hawkesbury Art Prize in 2012.

Claire Primrose: CV January, 2020 Download

Amy Dynan: Artist Statement & Bio

"I use the framework of beauty to explore the relationship between humanity and nature. My large-scale pastel paintings merge photorealism with abstract sensibilities to document moments of sublimity, transition and fragility in nature. The dynamics of light and dark work as a metaphor for the opposing forces in nature and in ourselves, creating landscapes that hover between land and sky, material and ethereal.

For me, drawing is a lens through which the spectrum of our existence is revealed, and a means to marvel at how lucky we are to feel it fully. To this end my work documents nature in flux and celebrates the beauty of what we stand to lose.”  

Amy Dynan is an award-winning artist, renowned for her nuanced balance between conceptual rigour and classical drawing skills. She completed her Master of Contemporary Art and Master of Fine Arts at Sydney College of the Arts in 2017, developing a strong conceptual framework of beauty as a means to explore human relationships with the natural world.

“As a visual artist, research can offer a deeper, more profound connection to the significance of one’s own art practice in a field beyond the studio. I knew that my passion for drawing, combined with rigorous institutional and art world scrutiny and support would provide the necessary framework to further my aesthetic.”

Dynan has held two sell out solo exhibitions at Stanley Street Gallery, ‘Water’ in 2019 and ‘Skytalk’ in 2021. Dynan has been a finalist in the Dobell Drawing Prize the Adelaide Perry Drawing Prize and the Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize. She has been selected for art residencies in France, Norway and Iceland (2018), Hill End (2017, 2020), Mornington Peninsula (2020) and Bundanon Trust (William Fletcher Scholarship) (2024).

Amy Dynan: CV November, 2023 Download

Toni Messiter: Artist Statement & Bio

I am inspired by classical painting and portraiture, feelings of ambiguity, light and shadow. I am particularly interested in enigmatic compositions, raising questions between reality and illusion and creating a sense of uncertainty between the viewer and the figures depicted. I am interested in this dialogue of ‘who is looking at who’ between the audience and the painted subjects, which for me is tied up in my own reflection of my past; of me looking at these characters I’ve painted, and their gaze looking back at me. I feel an immediacy in their observation and strong sense of attachment to them, yet also I am an outsider to the canvas. It’s as if my painted characters challenge and speak to me, the creator and in turn the viewer. It is a kaleidoscope of memory, portraits of the past or the framing of a life, but at the same time questions of who is looking at who in the paintings confuse interpretation and subjectivity.

Toni Messiter paints from her studio on Gadigal land (Sydney). She holds an Arts degree from Macquarie University and has a knowledge and deep interest in history and all things horticultural.  

Messiter works are held in the Macquarie University Collection and in private collections both nationally and internationally. She has been represented by Stanley Street Gallery since 2019.

Toni Messiter: CV September, 2024 Download

Gretal Ferguson: Artist Statement & Bio

Gretal Ferguson creates conceptual exhibition work using traditional craft skills in a sculptural setting, challenging the utilitarian traditions of her craft while honouring what came before. With the material process an integral part of her conceptual motivation, Ferguson embraces the arduous nature of silversmithing, using the hours of hammering to explore the work both aesthetically and conceptually, allowing it to unfold in a way it wouldn’t if the process was quick and less laborious.

After completing a music degree and travelling the world, Gretal gave into her ever-present passion for making and enrolled in Jewellery and Object Design at Design Centre, Enmore in Sydney. Not wanting to commit to a 2 year course she only payed for the first 6 months. 4 years later she emerged with an Advanced Diploma, 1 year residency and multiple graduate awards. Not yet sick of study Gretal decided to further her education by completing her Masters of Jewellery, Silversmithing, and Related Products at Birmingham City University’s School of Jewellery in the UK. Upon her return to Australia Gretal was accepted into the Associate Program at JamFactory in Adelaide, working out of the Jewellery and Metal Studio where she had the time and space to develop work for several local and international exhibitions.  She has now established her own studio in Adelaide.

Her recent achievements are – Finalist of the MAKE Award, Australia; winner of the Robert Foster F!nk National Metal Prize, Australia; winner of the Helge Larsen Award, JMGA Profile ‘22 Jewellery, Object, and Metalsmithing Award; finalist in the 2022 International Silver Triennial Germany; honorable mention in the 2020 New Taipei City International Metal Craft Competition, Taiwan; finalist in the KOGEI Award, Japan. She has received a 2 month artist residency in 2022 at DIVA Museum's atelier in Antwerp Belgium, 

Gretal Ferguson: CV August, 2024 Download

Hugh Kerr: Artist Statement & Bio

My work is a cerebral, politically aware form of surrealism. My desire to paint stems from a need to capture the fleeting imagery created by my subconscious. I use this imagery as metaphor to express thoughts on a range of issues affecting our society, be they political, social, economic or environmental. The imagery and the metaphor often emerge simultaneously. I developed the work iteratively through thumbnails, illustrations, rough paintings and more developed works. I have sought to continually improve my core technical skills of oil painting and, more recently, drawing with pen and ink, allowing more effective and absorbing communication of my ideas. 

Hugh Kerr is a British Born artist based in Hobart.  Kerr has been painting and drawing for 20 years and his influences are drawn from a lifetime of varied experience travelling widely working in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia. Kerr's chief artistic themes are the mechanics of human society and our collective impact on the environment, which he explores using allegories and subconscious imagery.

Kerr is primarily self-taught and has sought to develop his skills through stylistic and thematic experimentation. Individual and group tuition in oil painting received since moving to Hobart has also allowed him to develop his technical skill.

Since 2014, Kerr put his artistic practice on a more serious footing with four solo exhibitions; most recently at the Salamanca Arts Centre in May 2018. In 2017 and 2018, he took 12 months to focus primarily on painting. Recently Kerr's work has been shortlisted for the Emerging Artist Award, 45 Downstairs, Flinders Lane, Melbourne, June ’19 and the Contemporary Art Award, Brisbane, ’18.

Tor Larsen: Artist Statement & Bio

Tor’s artwork is inspired by film making processes in which a scene is defined by a camera frame enclosing environments, objects/props that viewers mentally and occasionally physically interact with. His disturbing and surreal creations are infused with a sense of lost history, changing social/philosophical values as well as well as darker subconscious themes.

The choice of materials has always been important for Tor. His preference for found and recycled materials and objects imbued with their own history, is crucial to his conceptual development, often informing the construction, ultimate shape and meaning in a given work.

Also crucial to his create process; is the juxtaposition of unlikely materials, objects and ideas as a means of stimulating thought and emotional responses in the viewer, sometimes affected through mechanical interaction with a work where the viewer becomes part of the process of its realisation.

Much of Tor's work attempts to recapture pasts; real, imagined or simply felt as well as to project a virtual and potentially threatening future into the mind of the viewer.

As an artist, Tor gained early exposure to tools and processes in his parent’s jewellery workshop. His first jobs were as a model and prop-maker which led to further employment in the film industry building miniature scenes and creating visual effects. In 1998, he completed a diploma in production design at the AFTRS, following which he worked for various companies and productions on the Gold Coast and in Melbourne as an art director and visual effects coordinator, eventually becoming a producer in Sydney. In 2015 Tor completed a degree in political economy at Sydney University. More recently he has been making jewellery, small sculptures and miniature installations that reflect his political, social and historical/cultural interests as experienced through the cinematic frame. His most recent exhibition was held with his parents and sister, Two Generations: Larsen & Lewers Pia Larsen, Tor Larsen at Spot81 gallery, Sydney in 2016.

Tor Larsen: CV January, 2020 Download