Sibylla Robertson: Artist Statement & Bio

My practice is driven by the chemical possibilities of glaze and dual history of ceramics as both sacred artefact and quotidian object. The absence of tactile interaction and the tension of the ceramic object within the fine art world is of particular interest to me, and I see my work as being part of a larger dialogue around material hierarchies and material culture.

My practice is site-specific and interactive, responding to mythmaking and ritual exchanges that take place within significant sites of worship such as the gallery or holy spaces, and their economic correlatives. I explore the notion of world-building within these paradigms through videogame theory, drawing on my personal history and desire to expand beyond the typical audience/artwork dynamic found within gallery spaces.

While I gravitate towards the ceramic medium as my anchor point, my practice is fluid and extends multiple disciplines, always addressing the site it takes place in as well as the history that precedes it

Sibylla Robertson completed their Master of Fine Art at the National Art School in 2021, where they received the Mansfield Ceramic Prize (2019), and the N.E. Petheridge Award (2021). Their work developed as a student garnered attention and was selected for several graduate shows including “Oh Me, Oh My”, Gaffa Gallery, Sydney (2019), “Emanate”, New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale (2019) and “Cooked and the Raw”, Delmar Gallery, Sydney (2020). Upon the completion of their Master degree in 2021, Robertson was awarded the Graduate to Studio membership prize by the Australian Ceramics Association. In 2022 Robertson’s work “Golden Child” was a finalist in the National Emerging Art Prize.

Robertson has since exhibited throughout Australia and internationally, including two performance works at “Cut N Polish”, Carriageworks, Sydney (2022 and 2023) and various group shows such as “Say—sweet silence” Altehandelschule, Germany (2023), “It’s Nothing Personal”, Seventh Gallery, Melbourne (2024), “DESCENDANTS”, Onwards Gallery, Newcastle (2024), and “Notes on Reciprocity”, Stanley St Gallery, Sydney (2024).

In 2023, Robertson completed an international residency in Leipzig, Germany. In February 2024, they were selected for the Wollongong-based Burnt Dirt residency.

Artist portrait by Tessa Stevens

Sibylla Robertson: CV July, 2025 Download

Jacquie Meng: Artist Statement & Bio

My works explore exaggerated and self conceptualised self portraiture in a way that considers arranging the self, objects and landscapes in a way that is carnivalesque and grotesque.  The idea of the carnival liberates us from the constraints of everyday life, allowing for a fluid exchange of identities and roles.  This idea resonates deeply with the diasporic experience, where identity is often fragmented and multifaceted. I also consider site-specificity, and how the displacement of cultural objects impacts identity formation within diasporic communities. I believe that arts relationship to place can reshape perceptions of identity, and thus paintings not only exist as static objects but engage with the context of their display. 

A large consideration in the making of my work is ‘thing-power’, a concept that explores agency within objects, and how non-human entities can possess agency in determining meaning.  In these works the self is a clock, the eyes are pool balls, the dresser mirror is a portal to a playground, the pool table is a groomed garden with patterns of i-ching coins.  I am interested in the way that patterns travel across time and space and have spiritual meaning or idiosyncratic ones… or both. Scattered in my work are patterns from Han Dynasty tombstones, traditional fortune telling mechanisms and prints on fabric and clothing.

Jacquie Meng graduated from ANU with a Bachelor of Visual Arts (First Class Honours)/ Bachelor of Art History and Curatorship in 2022. She was awarded the Brett Whitely travelling scholarship in 2021, selected as a finalist in 2022 'the churchie' emerging art prize at the IMA, and PICA’s 'Hatched'. In 2023, she took part in residencies include Kunstraum in New York and Pilotenkueche International Art Program in Leipzig and in 2024 she was selected as the recipient of the Waverley Artist Studio residency in Bondi.

In 2023 and 2024 she represented Stanley Street Gallery at the 'Sydney Contemporary' and was also selected for the 2024 Canbera Art Biennial.  Meng also exhibited in ‘YEAR OF THE DRAGON’ at 4A Center for Contemporary Asian Art, ‘The Floor is Lava’ with Tiles Gallery and ‘Choose Your Fighter’ with Marvin Gardens New York.

Jacquie was awarded the 2024 Mosman Art Prize - Guy Warren Emerging Artist Award and was a finalist in the Lenn Fox painting prize.

Jacquie Meng: CV May, 2025 Download

Oscar Nimmo: Artist Statement & Bio

Oscar Nimmo is an Eora (Sydney) based artist whose work explores the communicative possibilities of non-representational form. His paintings and drawings use an iterative draw- ing process that plays on our pre-existing relationships to shapes, colours and the associa- tions they evoke. Taken from a background in graphic design, Oscar looks to re-contextualise many of the visual principles and skills inherent to the field and create images that defy a clear function to the viewer. Within each composition there may be traces of language, people, objects or memories that arise and contribute to an emotional response. Cognisant or prescriptive modes of thinking are bypassed in favour of an intuitive and personal under- standing of the work.

Oscar Nimmo (b. 1993) is visual artist based in Eora (Sydney). His practice spans across draw- ing, animation and painting. After studying architecture, Oscar moved into animation where he completed his Batchelor. Since graduating, his graphic style has been used in creative projects for New York Times, MTV and visual identities for some of Australia’s biggest music festivals. In recent years, Oscar has moved towards physical media with a focus on his draw- ing and painting practice. This direction is an evolution of his design work, allowing him to build his own personal visual language whilst challenging the principles of graphic design and communication. Since turning to painting, Oscar has shown three bodies of work at Tiles Lewisham (2024), NASHA Gallery (2024) and Woollahra Gallery (2025). He has been a finalist in the Mosman, Sulman and Muswellbrook art prizes respectively.